


The Shore

by twosuns



Series: How He Found Out series [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, Canon up to 5x13, Eligius fic, F/M, Happy, How He Found Out series, Romance, Season 6 one-shot, Season/Series 06 Speculation, bellamy + clarke, dream fic, first in the, fluffy fluff, one shots, the beach, the head + the heart, with angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-19
Updated: 2019-02-19
Packaged: 2019-10-31 19:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17855381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twosuns/pseuds/twosuns
Summary: Of all the places in Clarke Griffin's subconscious to end up: the beach is decidedly not where he expected to be.Canon up to 5x13: a Season 6 one shot where Bellamy stumbles upon how Clarke really feels. Oneshot.





	The Shore

**_The Shore_ **  


The sun is blinding and warm on his face as Bellamy strains to open his eyes. Of all the places in Clarke Griffin's subconscious to end up: the beach is decidedly _not_ where he expected to be.

 

Two weeks now, since they found her unconscious in a patch of what looked like blue posies. She had gone looking for them under the suspicion that they might have medicinal properties, and unfortunately she was right. The locals use the flower as a sedative, even brief contact with its buds strong enough to send a patient into a deep sleep. With a small dose she would wake up in a matter of hours… but having slept in the pollen all afternoon, Clarke wasn’t so lucky.

 

Their new friends were insistent: the only way to wake her is to send someone into her mind and guide her out of the dream. Despite their best efforts to explain, Bellamy was too distracted to try and understand the science behind the alien process. He knew they were out of better options to wake her, and the flame ruled out Madi for the job. If anyone was to be trusted blindly poking around Clarke’s innermost thoughts, they all agreed it should be him. He didn’t need to know the other details.

 

So here he was: doing what _should_ be the impossible and waking up in Clarke's dreams. He hated the imposition on her privacy, but admittedly it intrigued him to see what a perfect day might look like to her.

 

Letting his eyes adjust to the light, Bellamy makes his way forward and the scene to comes into focus. He recognises this place now; a beach not far from their settlement on Earth-2. The shoreline and cove served as a favourite swimming hole to their people, the spot overlooked by a cliff where Clarke would often go to think. His first thought is to head there, but the distant sound of laughter pulls him toward the water instead.

 

Right away his eyes fall to her. She is sitting leisurely on a blanket in the sand: dressed in plain dark shorts and an oversized t-shirt ( _where had he seen it before?_ ). Her blonde curls fell in front of her face as she focuses on a sketchbook, taking a moment every so often to stop and look over her work. Bellamy tries to get her attention by calling her name, but he’s nothing more than a ghost to this dreamy version of Clarke.

 

Hearing the laughter again finally brings his attention to the water’s edge. In the distance he makes out the blur of a pair wrestling in the waves. Madi’s unmistakeable crop of hair whips into sight as she playfully dunks a second figure underwater… then with childlike glee, runs away in the other direction. This garners whole-hearted laughter from DreamClarke. Bellamy couldn't help but admire seeing her this way: carefree. Her usually-stiff body language was gone, the guarded expression she wore replaced with a relaxed smile. He hadn't realised how long it had been since her seen her _happy_.

 

“Oh you think that's funny, do you?” an all-too familiar voice shouts from the water, abruptly tearing Bellamy’s attention away from Clarke. He’s almost startled to see his own doppelganger strolling through the waves towards them, clad in cargo shorts and a mischievous grin.

 

“I see a big tall soldier taken down by a little girl,” DreamClarke teases back, putting down her sketch. “Seems to me you’re out of practice, _spacekru_!”

 

With that: Bellamy watches his dream-self run out of the water and playfully lunge towards Clarke. She lets out a squeal: darting out of reach at the last second, running back towards the sand dunes... but she can’t escape his longer stride on land. In a few swift movements DreamBellamy lifts her up over his shoulder and marches her into the water, over her shouting protests. DreamMadi looks on and laughs as he tosses her back into the waves: soaking her from head to toe.

  


Sun shining, friends and family at her side, not a care in the world... Bellamy could see why Clarke hasn’t been ready to leave this place. After years of impossible choices, what more could she want but a quiet life? Maybe her vision of a perfect day wasn’t as surprising as he first thought.

 

As if on cue: DreamClarke leaps out from the water. She’s drenched and shaking she’s so cold, but still laughing right along with the rest. DreamBellamy throws her a look that dares her to chase after him, and the two take off through the water. Just as stubborn as the real thing: Clarke catches up quickly and throws herself at him without warning-- she lands firmly against his chest as he struggles to catch her. Seeing the two of them so close, Bellamy suddenly remembers where he’s seen her oversized t-shirt before: it _undoubtedly_ belongs to the other “him”. He doesn’t have time to consider that detail before the next surprise hits him:

 

Clarke giggles (actually _giggles_ ) and wraps her arms around Bellamy’s neck.

 

Then, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world: she reaches up into a sweet, long, unabashed kiss.

 

Together they look like two people who have been in love for a lifetime, nothing unfamiliar about how they move. DreamBellamy runs his hands over her back, then brings one up to tangle into her hair: deepening the kiss as he lifts her up in his arms with the other. They break apart only to share a quiet laugh before he starts to lay butterfly kisses on her neck… earning another playful giggle from his partner. They carry on for a time, flirting and laughing in their own world... before a teasing Madi sends a splash of cold water their way, starting the next pursuit.

 

Bellamy can only look on, dumbfounded, from the shore. He accepted _years ago_ that Clarke only saw him platonically. He was her best friend and comrade: close in a way that went beyond words sometimes, but _not_ someone she was interested in romantically. After Praimfaya, he locked those feelings for her even deeper down out of necessity. And in the time since finding her again… things had changed for both of them. There was a conscious effort not to let himself think about her in that way anymore. If all she saw in him was a  friend, a partner... that’s what he would be for her for the rest of his days. Despite what he may have felt otherwise: their friendship mattered too much to him to jeopardise it. That’s _always_ how things have been between them.

 

Finding out Clarke thought about him this way would have been shock enough... but to watch the possibility played out in front of him, taunting their life that could have been? It was all too much.  

 

The banter continues for some time between the dream-couple, until finally the two of them make their way back to shore. Bellamy falls on the sandy blanket first then pulls Clarke onto his shoulder, she settles in there as if they were made for each other. The two of them take a deep breath and stare up at the sky together, smiling and taking in the moment.  


 

Suddenly, so much about the change in Clarke since Praimfaya makes sense. Even after they all moved past what happened in Polis, after they built this new life for their people together: there had remained a strained distance between the two of them. When they weren’t busy saving the world he could feel her at an arm’s length. Always too quick to answer and _too_ polite, it was like there was something more she was keeping from him. But after months of trying to figure it out, Bellamy reminded himself that she was all but alone in the world for six years-- that it could be she wasn’t as open with her feelings as she once was. He left it alone. _Was this what kept her away, all this time?_

 

Is _this_ what she was thinking about all those times that he found her staring out over the shore, alone and lost in thought?

 

Suddenly recalling the reason he's here: Bellamy knows he’s already spent too much time chasing after dreams. With one last heartbreaking look to the beach, he makes his way back along the path and up the cliff… just as he has so many times before. Sure enough, sitting there on the edge (like she always does) is Clarke.

 

His Clarke.

 

Suddenly he’s unsure of how to approach her. He had stumbled into a part of her mind that she had clearly meant to keep to herself… how would she react to his intrusion?

 

Wordlessly he opts to sit next to her, to his surprise with no reaction from his companion. Did she think he was part of the dream? Did she even realise she was asleep?

 

“Clarke?” he starts, as he always does. She doesn’t respond, just sighs and keeps her gaze fixed on the scene below.

 

Gingerly he takes her hand: meaning to say something about her accident, about being trapped inside her own mind... but peering down to the blissful couple on the beach, he’s overwhelmed with emotion. He’s speaking before he can think.

 

“You never told me.” He whispers quietly, almost broken.

 

_How could he not see it earlier?_

 

She bites her lip and squeezes his hand, tears welling in her eyes. He still doesn't know if she suspects he’s real, but in this moment it doesn't matter. In this moment: the world is just the two of them.

 

“I can’t lose you Bellamy,” she admits, mirroring something she told him years ago… tears flowing freely down her face now, “you’re-”

 

She shakes her head, taking a deep breath to compose herself.

 

“...I can _live_ without you not knowing how I feel. You're _happy. That's_ what matters…” her heartbroken eyes meet his, pleading for something he can’t give her. His thumb brushes the trail of tears from her cheeks, and her resolve is gone: “I don’t think I could take it if I lost you again-”

 

She breaks down: the walls she had built since Praimfaya finally crumbling away. Sobs overtake her and she tears her hands away from his to bury her face as she cries.

 

Bellamy knows he should stop this. He _should_ explain what was happening and get her back to reality before anything else is said. Instead, he’s pulling her into his arms and burying her cries in his shoulder... fighting back his own flood of emotion. He rocks her as she weeps, whispering sweet nothing words of love in her ear: whispering things he had only dared say in the back of his mind before. Nothing held back now, their murmurs are purely the most _honest_ they have ever really been. Lost in the grief of what could have been between them: they finally found the words they never had.

 

The two hold each other for what seems like forever _(but never enough time)_ until they are both sitting silent, afraid to move. Neither wants to break the spell.

 

Eventually it’s Bellamy who works up the strength to say it: “We have to get home, Clarke.” he pulls back and looks apologetically into her eyes as he continues, “You know this place isn’t real.”

 

Clarke nods, taking a deep breath. She did know. She’s been waiting for him, for someone in her dreams, to say it. In the blink of an eye her guarded expression is back, her posture stiffened as the two of them stand up and take one last look around her paradise. Back to reality.

 

Nothing else is said, he simply takes her hand and leads her back in the direction he came. As the world fades away and is replaced with a white overwhelming light, Bellamy feels Clarke squeeze his hand one more time….and everything is gone.

 

+

  


Clarke opens her eyes first, immediately groaning at the harsh lights and sounds assaulting her senses. The room erupts into a fury of movement and voices calling out… medical machines beeping all around her. A beat later Clarke feels two small, familiar arms around her shoulders. Her eyes are met with Madi’s, red and strained but clearly relieved to see her mother awake.

 

“I’m okay.” Clarke tries to say, her voice hoarse from days of silence, “It’s okay Madi, I’m here.”

 

Madi smiles and sobs, pulling Clarke into another hug. It’s then that she realizes they aren’t alone. The room is full of their friends: Murphy, Jordan and the others stand hovering over a cluster of uncomfortable looking seats. Raven, Echo, Shaw, Emori, Abby and Jackson, Miller, Octavia even… everyone looking at her with a heartwarming sense of relief. Everyone, except…

 

It’s then that she hears Bellamy’s groans across the room. She looks in his direction and her blood runs cold when she realizes that he was asleep, too. He takes foreign-looking sensors off his temples and shakes his head, finally opening his eyes.

 

Before she can turn away, he’s already looking through her and there is no question it was really him on that cliff. As she silently holds his gaze over Madi’s shoulder, an intimacy from their encounter lingers between them.

 

_She knows._

 

_He knows._

 

And all at once: nothing has changed while everything has changed. They are further apart than ever, but closer than they’ve ever been. They hold each other’s eyes for a second more: clinging to the feeling between them before they have to snap back to their lives. For one last moment it none of the rest has to matter. For one last moment: the world is just the two of them and their beach.

 

* * *

  


_thanks for reading! <3_


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